Seeing Double

I use to live alone with my mother in an apartment in Queens. The rent was costly, and my mom had to work two jobs to pay for it. I had to walk to school every day because I couldn’t afford to ride the subway. Being a single parent in New York was really hard on my mom. We always dreamed of escaping the city, but we had nowhere else to go. I never had many friends, and as an only child, I felt really isolated. People always ignored me as I walked through the halls of my schools. I thought that no one even knew that I existed until one day when I realized that I was being watched. 

It happened in the middle of my Junior year. I was walking the two miles home from school when I saw some guy in a Romwe hoodie, ripped black jeans, and plain white Adidas walking across the street in my direction. He followed me for the whole two miles home. Of course, it wasn’t strange to see someone else walking my route. New York is a crowded city, after all, and even the out-of-the-way backstreets I used usually had a few travelers. What bothered me was how he seemed to be directed to me, as if I was leading him. Whenever I sped up, he did too. When I took a wrong turn to try and get away, he followed me around the cul-de-sac and back down my street. I started to feel panicked. I tried to lose him, but he managed to follow me wherever I went. When I finally got home, I rushed into the complex, up the stairs, and through my door, shutting it before he could get inside too. Through the window we shared with our neighbor, I could see him standing just below our apartment. He stood on the pavement for at least a minute, then turned around and walked back where we had just come from.

“What’s wrong?” my mom asked. I opened my mouth to tell her about the hooded figure, but I stopped just before I did. She had enough trouble as it was. She didn’t need this too.

“Nothing,” I said, “I’m fine. What’s for dinner?”

The next day, I saw the same Romwe hoodie and jeans behind me. He was about 30 yards away, but even from that distance, I could tell that his plain white Adidas had been replaced by red and white Nikes, just like the ones I had on. Again he followed me home, stood for a minute, then left. I did my homework and mostly forgot about him, but my dreams that night were haunted by that Romwe hoodie. I pictured him taking off the hood to reveal a face with scales, or feathers, or even no face at all. The next day he followed me again with his same hoodie and Nikes, and a new pair of blue jeans ripped in all the same places mine were. I wanted to tell someone, needed to, in fact, but I had no one to confide in. I had no brothers or sisters, and all my friends, well, never existed in the first place. 

I stayed in my apartment for the whole weekend afterward just to avoid him, but I still sometimes saw him out of the shared window. On Monday, I tried to fake a fever so that I could stay home, but my mom caught me before I had gotten to the right temperature. At school, I couldn’t focus on anything except for the imminent walk home looming over my head. Lunch came, but I couldn’t eat. My last period, history, seemed especially short that day. The bell rang, and the students rushed eagerly to get home. I trudged out of school and began my trek home. 

I checked behind my shoulder with every step, but he was nowhere to be seen. My path was unusually empty of other people, but I still checked behind every corner just in case. When I got to the intersection that marked my halfway point, I stopped to rest. Where was he? Somehow not seeing him follow me was so much more terrifying than the alternative. What was he doing? I imagined him waiting around a corner, ready to kill me. Relax, I thought. He probably got arrested or something. I took a deep breath and crossed the empty intersection.

Suddenly, a white truck came racing down the street towards me. It wasn’t slowing down for me; in fact, it seemed to be speeding up. I sprinted as fast as I could towards the other side, barely making it before the car would have killed me. I watched, terrified, as the truck turned around and started coming towards me on the sidewalk. I ran but couldn’t outrace it. I dove onto the street right before it hit me. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move my leg. The truck stopped, and out the door came someone in red and white Nikes, ripped blue jeans, a bomber jacket, and a Nike t-shirt; the same outfit I was wearing, except for the hockey mask which covered his face. In his hands, he had a tranquilizer gun that was aimed at my neck. I trembled on the asphalt as he approached me.

“You should have taken the subway,” he said, pulling the trigger.

I felt the dart enter my neck. The world blurred into a mess of paints thrown haphazardly on a dirty canvas. My whole body felt like it was burning as my vision faded into black, and I felt myself slipping into an unwanted sleep. Someone picked me up and carried me away, and in less than a minute, I was out.

I woke up in a dark room, the only light coming from a small, barred window at the top of the wall in front of me. Below it sat a shadowy figure in red and white Nikes. He was focused on To Kill A Mockingbird, which he held in his lap so that the light would hit it. On the floor beside him lay a Romwe hoodie.

“Who are you?” I asked, still barely conscious. “Where am I?”

The figure looked up. I couldn’t see his face clearly through the darkness, but it seemed familiar in a way. “Awake already?” he said. His voice sounded familiar too. “I would have expected a few more days out of you. I guess we are stronger than we look.”

“Answer my questions.”

The figure sighed. “So pushy. I’ll have to remember that. As for where you are, you are in my bedroom. Cheery, isn’t it? You’re a long way from home, my friend, so I wouldn’t bother escaping. I’ve found you once, and I can find you again. Mother is not very good at hiding from her past, is she?”

“What do you mean? Who are you?”

He sighed again. “Honestly, I would have expected more out of us. You really haven’t figured it out by now?” He stepped towards the light. “Let me give you a little hint.” He stepped further, almost into the light now. The daylight highlighted his features, and it all suddenly became clear. I had seen it all before. That nose, those eyes, the receding chin. He noticed my recognition and grinned.

“Seeing double, are we?”

He stepped into the light, and I saw my own face laughing. He looked at me and noticed that my recognition had faded into confusion. He stopped laughing, now just as confused as I was.

“Didn’t you know? Didn’t mother tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

He stared at me in some kind of bewildered dismay. Then he sighed again, but this time it was full of sorrow instead of arrogance. He took a deep breath and began his---our---story.

“When mother was just barely out of high school, she got pregnant. She didn’t know what she would do, but she had an apartment and a part-time job. She thought she could take care of a child. Nine months later, she went to the hospital to have the baby.”

“And then she had me,” I said, confused. How did he know so much about my mom? “She told me that already.”

“But she told you a lie. She didn’t have you. She had us.” He paused as if deciding whether he needed to go on. I was frozen in shock. Us? He kept going.

“Mother didn’t know what to do. Raising one child would be difficult, but twins? Impossible! She only saw one choice. She kept one of us and gave the other up for adoption. She gave me away!” he said, tears filling his eyes. “They sent me to a family in Brooklyn. They treated me like a slave. Every day I would cook, clean, care for the children. I was treated like scum.”

“I...I’m sorry…”

“I have waited 16 years for this moment, enduring pains and heartache that you wouldn’t be able to comprehend. But that’s all over now,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Now it’s my turn to be with mom.” He pulled a gun out of his jacket and pointed it at my chest. “What is she like? Actually, don’t tell me. I would rather be surprised.” 

 “You don’t have to do this,” I said, coming towards him slowly. He held his finger on the trigger. One false move, and I would be dead. “You could come back to us. Mom would be happy to take you back. We could be a family again.”

“Don’t you get it? Mom doesn’t want a family. It’s you or me.” He cocked the gun and tightened his grip. “And we both know who wins that battle. It’s over, brother.” He pulled the trigger.

I felt a sharp pain in my arm. It was bleeding tremendously, but it looked like a flesh wound. My twin angrily tried to fire again, but the gun was out of bullets. 

“Fine,” he said, grabbing a knife. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

He rushed towards me, knife in hand. I dodged to the side and tripped him as he ran. He fell to the concrete floor loudly, the knife clattering a few feet away. His eyes fixed on the fallen weapon. I raced to grab it before he did and held it to his stomach as he lay on the ground.

“Stand up slowly and come with me,” I said. “We’re going to the police.” I started to get up, but he grabbed my arm.

“No,” he said. I stopped, the knife still hovering above him.

“What do you mean, no?”

He laughed, but without any joy. “My life was filled with sorrow. You already know that. I don’t know that I could survive in jail. I don’t know that I would want to.” He grabbed my hands and held them tight. “This is for the best.” Then, before I could pull away, he thrust the knife into his own stomach. 

The world felt like it was moving in slow motion. The knife dropped to the floor as the blood stained his shirt. I lifted his body, barely clinging to life, into my arms. His breathing became slow and labored. 

“It’ll be okay,” I kept telling him. “You’ll survive, we’ll get you help.” I kept saying those phrases over and over until he finally shushed me. After a long pause, he finally spoke.

“What is mom like?” He asked, each breath strained and painful.

“She’s wonderful,” I told him. He smiled.

“Just like I imagined.” And with that, he slipped away in my arms.